College-Cram.com gives students textbook quality help, without the hefty price tag
Written by Chad Fullerton

In response to our Cramster article on textbook homework help and midterm/exam prep, I had the pleasure of receiving a message from Rudy Lopes, who is part of a similar site called College-Cram. The site can be beneficial to McMaster students academically, and so I decided to interview Rudy Lopes about the site to get his take on what College-Cram was about and how it could assist you, a McMaster student.

College-Cram is run by three people including Brian Shannon, Jack Robinson, Rudy Lopes, all of which used to work for Harcourt College Publishing in Fort Worth Texas. When Harcourt was acquired by Thomson Learning in 2001, the Fort Worth office was shut down and employment terminated for many of the local employees. With their many years of experience in publishing and business, the three decided to become entrepreneurs and create an online alternative to increasingly high-priced textbooks.

"Students are constantly searching for additional help online, we see it all the time", says Rudy. "Many 'helpful' websites turn out to be no more than link collections pointing at other places where help may be found, or where the help is buried in hard to read content like Wikipedia". He gives the example of trying to look up the structure of an atom, which is quite difficult to find a short answer for.

As students, we've all noticed just how high priced these textbooks are, yet we continue to buy them each year because of professors referring to specific chapters, and integrating them into the course, yet most students end up selling them at the end of the semester for a small percentage of the price they originally paid.

"Every three years, publishing houses crank out a new edition with little changed from the previous one, apart from some new illustrations and examples", explains Rudy, "we built a website that housed the bits that don't change from edition to edition".

College-Cram calls these learning modules "Cramlets", which cover the basics of coursework that are independent of the textbook, teacher, or school. They are divided into specific content area, "so McMaster students get help in what they need when they need it". And it seems to be working, as McMaster students are signing up on the site and have been using it over the past few years, according to Rudy. "Students are using these to help master the material, and many are beginning to create their own Cramlets on our site too".

College-Cram also includes a social networking aspect, which we've become very well accustomed to (Facebook, MySpace, even some elements of MacInsiders). The social networking features at College-Cram allow it to create a "social learning environment" where students can also help by contributing to the site. "Students are encouraged to create their profiles, post up their class notes, and connect with fellow students in study groups or interest areas. With the flexibility of the social learning environment, there is no limit to what they can do".

Content is updated almost on a daily basis, and at times the owners of the site will create Cramlets as a direct result of student questions sent to "Professor Cram", who posts the Cramlets on the site.

So how accurate is College-Cram? Can we trust it's material? Rudy says we can. "From our publishing days we have a wealth of materials and editorial contacts, which we call upon to create and verify all the materials we post on the site. Among our many authors include holders of masters and doctorate degrees as well as native language speakers".

Now, being a site with the name 'college' in it, and also being run out of America, I became curious as to how relevant the information on College-Cram might be, since the American education system follows different standards than here in Canada. But Rudy made it clear that the material can, and is, still used by Canadian students.

"The academic areas can remain neutral since, for example, Newton's Laws don't change from country to country", says Rudy, "the university experience should be a multicultural awakening for students regardless of what country they're from".

You can learn more about College-Cram at their website: http://www.college-cram.com